Coffee
by 9r7g5h
Summary: She still knew how they liked their coffee.


**AN:** It's been a long time since I've written for Wreck-It Ralph. I know this isn't my best, but I hope it's a nice little ficlet for you all. Enjoy!

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Wreck It Ralph. Disney does.

* * *

"Morning, boys. Coffee?"

She didn't wait to hear their answers; already knowing what their responses would be, she pulled out everything she'd brought with her. Setting out the tools of her choosing, it only took a moment to fill the three cups, plastic precariously perched on the table she'd brought with her to the park. A permanent fixture now, one that had been left throughout the seasons she met with her men, it was beginning to crumble around the edges, the wood riddled with the beginning of rot and wood worms. Not that she cared; for years she'd been holding these meeting, swiping anything covering the surface to the ground below with uncaring ease, and if the table itself one day broke, she'd just get a new one.

"How about you first?"

 _"Milk. No cream, no sugar; just milk."_

It wasn't hard to hear him as she mixed the brew, the tip of her finger gathering a drop to test its consistency as she stirred, tongue remembering how it should be despite the years since she'd first made it. His was a matter of feel; he couldn't care less about the taste, but if someone was going to go through the bother of making coffee, he wanted it to _feel_ like coffee, not just bitter water.

Brad had always been strange like that, ever since she'd first met him. He still hadn't changed, and she suspected he never would.

"Hold your horses, short stack," Tamora said with a chuckle as she pulled the second cup toward her, hands already measuring and pouring as she spoke. "I still remember how to make yours too."

Felix's choice in drink was determined by taste. He had never gotten used to the bitter tang, though his odd hours as a handy-man made the caffeine necessary. So, just like he had done with tools and appliances and entire buildings, he had fixed it- with enough sugar, cream, cinnamon to choke a horse, thickening the drink into an almost slurry that she personally found disgusting, but he always seemed to enjoy it. How, when it left her mouth feeling like it was full of sweet sand when she took a sip to test it, she would never know, but Felix had always been a bit strange. Probably the reason why she loved him.

"There you go, boys," Tamora said with a sigh, placing the two full cups before them, a small smile on her face. "Drink up."

They didn't say anything- they never did. Instead she just sat there, sipping at her own brew- dark, strong, nothing to dilute or shift it from the bitter bean water it was. Their drinks cooled quickly in the winter air, leaving them the perfect temperature in just a few minutes of waiting, quickly turning too cold to settle properly in the stomach after a few minutes more.

They didn't tough their drinks. They never did.

"Ralph and the kid are doing well," Tamora said, shrugging slightly as she swirled the dregs in her own cup, refusing to lift her eyes to look at them. "As well as they can be, that is. They miss you."

Again, no response, from either of them- there never was, and Tamora knew it. She never expected one, because really, who would expect an answer from a set of headstones?

Everyone probably thought she was insane, coming here week after week, pouring coffee for first one, then two, lost loves. Thought she was crazy for spending hours on her weekend talking to those who couldn't talk back. But it was a habit she had created long before she had met Felix, one she had maintained during their marriage, and one he had, eventually, become a part of.

It hurt, looking at the two stones side by side, with just enough space for a third between them. But it was a sight she had gotten used to, and one that almost helped to ease the constant, throbbing pain that had been in her heart for the last year, ever since she lost him.

"Your mother called," she mentioned to Brad, giving him a small smile. "She invited me to dinner again; I gave her another excuse and offered to take her out to lunch. You would think, after thirty years, she would realize why I wouldn't want to stop by." Too many pictures, too many memories of their teenage years there- no, Tamora wasn't jumping at the bit to go to Brad's childhood home, to see where they had used to hang. Not at all, really. "And your father's wondering if we're coming for Christmas," Tamora mentioned to Felix, shaking her head. "I told him we were- he won't remember when he asks again next week, but we'll see."

She sat there for a few minutes, silently, looking between them, as if she was waiting for an answer. But of course nothing came, and she knew it never would.

"Well, boys, I have a date I need to keep- I'm meeting up with Kohut later at the bar. I'll be back next week, ok?"

Picking up both cups, she poured them over the grass that laid at the base of the stones- it was long since dead from the amount of coffee she had dumped over those exact same spots, just dirt instead of the brown, prickly grass that covered everything else. But she did it anyway- she had made her boys their coffee, and they deserved to have it, one way or another.

Packing up her thermos, leaving behind the rotting table, Tamora sighed as she left for her car. She might seem crazy, might seem insane, but she would still be back next week. She couldn't miss having coffee with her boys, now could she?


End file.
